Assault Horizon - the scripted planes

(Slight spoiler alert)

I'm going to try to do this without spoiling anything, but if you're hyper-sensitive to that, skip until you've gone through the game once . . .

Since it's supposed to follow real life, the story in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon has the American squadron flying specific planes at specific times. Some players may be interested in what they are and a bit of explanation.

In real life, the squadron would be assigned an aircraft type (duh) and stick with that type for a while. The type is matched to the unit's job -- a squadron with F-15Cs (single-seat Eagles) would be tasked for interception of other fighters, etc. In the case of a unit stationed where the game opens, they would have a versatile aircraft optimized primarily for ground-pounding, but capable of dealing with early generation fighters as well. That basically means F-16s for the Americans.

Flying the same plane for an entire game would be boring, of course, so I wrote a natural progression - which just so happens to involve "better" aircraft as you go - for the game. ("Better" is always a relative term in real life, though; the intricacies could fill a book, but basically there are plenty of places where a mission commander would prefer to have an A-10A rather than an F-22.) The changes in the aircraft type are actually covered in dialogue in the game, though admittedly you may miss them if you go through quickly.

The essential sequence for Bishop is this: you start out flying single-seat F-16s, which are versatile lightweight fighters capable of both air-to-air and air-to-ground action. At some point - I'm going to be vague in the interests of not giving away the plot - you move to aircraft optimized for high-speed interception: F-15s. Then as the enemy ratchets up, you would be supplied with the current alpha dog of the fighter world, the F-22.

Having said that, there is one attack mission where I would definitely pilot an A-10A, even though the story dialogue is not written that way. (It just wasn't realistic to have the pilots take that one-time shift there.) My choice has everything to do with fun as opposed to the suitability to the mission. And there's another mission where, if I was looking to fly an aircraft such as the featured F-4E (hint) or maybe a successor (another hint), I would substitute that. (Again, I'm going to be mysterious in the interests of trying not to ruin the game for anyone.)

I think the other storyline choices are probably pretty obvious. There is a bombing mission that was written for a B-1 as may be obvious once you look at the specific physics involved.

The beauty of a game, though, is that you don't have to pay attention to any of that. Personally, I would encourage players to use whatever plane they want wherever they want - hell, that's the idea of this. You want to take on the PAK-FA with a Warthog, more power to you. (You'd have to be pretty good to beat it, but I'm sure there are plenty of fans out there who can. For the record, I get my butt whipped by the worst enemy even when I'm in the best interceptor.)

I have a definite sequence in mind using European fighters (it's actually in the game details). And coming up with Russian alternatives is easy, too. But we'll save all that for another time . . .